


the frosted shell

by silkensong



Category: Mother 3
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Childhood Trauma, Dragons, End of the World, Family, Gen, Role Reversal, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:07:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24795154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkensong/pseuds/silkensong
Summary: Lucas is the dragon and the dragon is the world is being remade is being renewed is Lucas─ is Claus─
Relationships: Claus & Lucas (Mother 3), Hinawa & Lucas (Mother 3)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	the frosted shell

Lucas is born with a sunflower for a heart and a cog within his eye. He is a calm child, unlike his hasty brother; the people of Tazmily are scared by him, though they will not admit it, for his eye represents newness, represents change. The sunflower has seventeen petals.

Claus is born with a metal heart and needles over his arm. Five spread over his fingers, one over his wrist, one reaching for the crook of his elbow. There is something about him that feels old─familiar, almost. The people of Tazmily are not scared of this boy who rushes after everything in search of something he does not know the name of.

(In summary: Lucas is feared. Claus is revered.)

“Something’s gonna happen,” Claus says, grip on his arm tight. He wants to see the baby Drago that lives nearby. Something in Lucas says _wrong, you must not go near it,_ and so he nods along with his brother. “I want to know you’re safe. Something’s gonna go wrong.”

“I know,” Lucas agrees quietly. He pulls at the space over his chest─tears free a sunflower petal, presses it into Claus’ hands. “This way you’ll know I’m still here. Give me your heart.”

This is a routine. Something simple, something easy. The villagers fear Lucas with the metal in his eye, but they do not fear Claus, who can rend his heart from his chest and smile. He hums. There is no blood in his hand─only a scrap of metal, pulsing softly, in time with their breathing.

“We’ll keep each other safe,” promises Claus, tucking the sunflower petal into his pocket. “We always have.”

Lucas has lost ten petals, at this point. One for each year of his life. There are only seven left. Claus will stay safe unless he wants that number to become six.

They both live but Mom doesn’t. It feels like a hole has been torn in his chest; the next few days are a haze where Lucas cries and Claus leaves and then he cries some more. The feeling of a hole becomes more literal─Claus’ heart, tucked away against his sunflower, stops beating. He feels it when the petal in Claus’ pocket shatters.

Lucas aches. But he doesn’t cry anymore, because his hasty brother is gone and Tazmily always loved Claus more than they loved Lucas. He pushes the tears into a lockbox, hides his brother’s heart away, and the only person who sees his weakness is Boney.

Three years pass him by. Three petals shatter. Before he knows it, he’s being told to pull the needles and remake the world. Boney is at his side through it all: through the field of sunflowers and the island of hallucinations and every damned encounter with that Masked Man.

The Ultimate Chimera stalks the halls of the laboratory. Lucas stays vigilant─listens for the slightest movement in the hallways, watches every corner before he rounds them. He can’t afford to die here, like so many of the Pigmasks have. There is still so much he has to do that he cannot die here.

(He still has three petals left. That’s three more years of life─three years where he will not be killed by the chimera and he will not be killed by any of Porky’s minions and he will live or he will be nothing.)

It catches him anyway.

The Ultimate Chimera does not breathe, is the first thing he notices. There is no great big gulp of air as it prepares to kill him. There is no glistening of fangs, no blood on claws or blood on teeth─only the gaping maw, opening up before him, and then the quiet.

Lucas sees himself. His body is spread out on the floor as if asleep. There is no Boney, no Claus, no Mom or Kumatora or Duster. He is entirely alone. He is dead, even though he should have lived for another three (four) years.

Lucas wants to rest so, so badly, but he knows he cannot.

_I’m sorry,_ says Mom’s voice, ever so far away. _I know you want to rest. There is a great destiny for you─and I am so, so sorry about it. You have to wake up now._

_My brother is dead,_ thinks Lucas dizzily, but he is already awake. His sunflower only has two petals left.

One is lost to Porky─his attacks are demented, as unpredictable as he is, vicious and cruel. They leave aches up Lucas’ ribs and burns tracking over his palms. By the end of it (by the first time it ends) every inch of Lucas’ body has been masked in pain. He tastes blood. It is an easy death.

It is easier to get up. Because Porky has to be defeated, because he’s hurting people who don’t deserve to be hurt, because the Masked Man is waiting and this is the final needle. This is his final challenge on a long road.

Lucas breathes in, and he does not kill Porky.

Six needles have been pulled. Six needles have been burned into the Masked Man’s metal arm. Five dance over the fingers, shifting between reds and pinks. One stretches to the crook of his elbow. The Masked Man ( _Claus, Claus, it’s always been him_ ) is missing the connecting piece.

The lightning tastes─familiar, both old and new. Lucas has always known Claus more than he has known anyone else. His heart does not beat. His metal eye is a mirror image. They have always known each other, down to their deaths.

“We will both die here,” says Lucas. Lightning flickers over his tongue, the words electric. There is no quiet. The wind roars in his ears; it sounds like a dragon, roaring in death. “This is the only way.”

“I didn’t keep you safe,” says Claus. His human eye is wet with tears.

Lucas pulls the final needle, and he feels the world collapse inwards. Theirs is a series of islands─nowhere, everywhere, all that is left of the old and new worlds. Tazmily is but a speck compared to the vast universe; Lucas loves it anyway.

Lucas could love everything, like this, could live through everything. But he does not. He tears apart the unknown until nowhere remains. He tears apart the absolutely safe capsule, because nothing is safe. He tears apart Porky, at a time when Porky is old and frail and dying. It is not a kind ending.

Nothing is kind; everything is kind. Lucas has become the world─his breaths plant seeds in infertile ground, his heart becomes a core of molten heat, his every spine is a mountain. Lucas is the dragon and the dragon is the world is being remade is being renewed is Lucas─ is Claus─ is both and neither all at once.

In Tazmily which is not Tazmily, a woman gives birth to her twin sons. She names the calmer Claus, the rowdier Lucas. Claus has a sunflower for a heart and an eye of steel; Lucas has a metal heart and a row of needles scraping up his spine. There are seventeen petals. There are seven needles.

**Author's Note:**

> my dumb ass: so what if it was a cycle


End file.
